Completed Event: Women's Basketball at Eastern Kentucky on March 19, 2026 , Loss , 58, to, 72
Final Score
Women's Basketball
58
at Eastern Kentucky
72
The University of Utah Athletics
Quotes from Lynne Roberts' Weekly Press Conference
2/9/2016 12:00 AM | Women's Basketball
Feb. 9, 2016
Utah Women's Basketball Press Conference
Head Coach Lynne Roberts
Feb. 9, 2016
Opening statement:
"We are coming off a good win Sunday against Colorado and the week's sweep. As we've talked about, it's unique and it presents its own challenges. It's hard to beat anyone twice and it's really hard to beat the same team twice in one week. We're pleased to get through that 2-0 and each game was different so it was a good learning experience. We're continuing to get better. We had a great fourth quarter [on Sunday], we outscored [Colorado] 23-14. It was fun to see our team push through a little adversity and run away with it at the end. It was a good win and a good week. Now we re-group and go on the road. We have four of our last six [regular-season] games on the road. This week and Oregon and Oregon State, next week we have Cal and Stanford at home, and finish at Washington and Washington State. Those are our last six games. There is a lot to play for, which is fun, but we just have to go one at a time."
On winning in different ways:
"My biggest thing is that I just want to keep improving every week and [being able to win in different way] shows that we are getting better. We continue to improve. We're not just playing games and hoping we win. We're improving. At the beginning of the season, during the preseason in particular, we really relied on Emily Potter. She put everyone on her back, statistically her numbers were so good. Everyone else has come along really nicely, in terms of figuring out where they can be effective. At this point in the season, it really is about players stepping up and making plays. For the most part, your systems are in, you can make tweaks here and there, but our identity is pretty much established along with who we are and how we can do things so it comes down to players making plays. That fourth quarter in the second game [last week] at Colorado, we were down four after the third quarter but our players made baskets and made plays at both ends of the court on offense and defense when it was winning time. That's progress and it's great to see."
On the leadership of this team:
"It's all of the players. They've done a tremendous job of buying in. I don't know if I can pinpoint one person and say she was the reason everyone got on board. That speaks to the character of the kids that we have. I've said that from the beginning, I've been very fortunate with the character of kids that I inherited. They want to win and want to be good. It's one thing to say you want to be good, everyone wants to win, but what are you willing to do to do that and make it a possibility? These guys have bought in and they're working really hard. They're working harder than they've ever worked. That can wear you down a little bit and get you fatigued, but they're pushing through it. They've done a nice job from our seniors all the way down. It's not one particular person. The whole group has bought into getting better and doing it as a group. It's been fun to see."
On Danielle Rodriguez being named to the Allstate WBCA Good Works Team®:
"This is cool, prestigious and impressive of an award as there is. There are only five NCAA Division I student-athletes who receive it and it's one of the most prestigious awards given. She was nominated last year, I heard that and thought it was impressive, and this year she was nominated and then earned the award. To inherit a player like Dani, I feel lucky that I get to coach her. If you read the release and all of the things that she has done, these student-athletes have such an opportunity to do good. You have such a platform as a student-athlete to make a difference, especially at a place like Utah. Dani is someone who has really bought into that, but it didn't just start when she got to Utah. She has an amazing family and she was raised to think about others and care about others. It's really cool. I'm so proud of her. That is one of the best awards you can get as a college athlete. For us to have someone like that wearing the Utah jersey representing us in this community is really, really cool. I'm really proud of her."
On Malia Nawahine:
"She is another player who was out last year with an injury. To start this season, we saw flashes of [her ability] but she was more inconsistent in production, which is to be expected and that is what happens coming off sitting out a year and coming back to new coaches, new staff and new style of play, everything is new. Inconsistency is expected from everyone, but now once we started conference you can see her settling in and now over the last four or five games, she's had double-figures in points and is getting rebounds. She's typically tasked with guarding the other team's best perimeter player because she's feisty, fearless and it's difficult to not have her on the floor. It's hard to take her out because of what she brings. Offensively, she's settled down a little bit. She understands where she can get her shots and where she can create shots for other people. She's done a really nice job. She's finishing the season strong and we need that."
On matchup with Oregon State:
"They're good. It's been their year so far. They've been the best team in the league so far this year top to bottom. Teams have competed with them, but to this point it's been their season. They're really good. We have to get through Oregon first and Oregon is really good. They're on a roll right now. They've won six of their last seven so they're playing really well right now so I'm focused on them. The thing about Oregon State that is so impressive is that they know who they are. You can look at great teams and be sure that they know their identity. Those players have done a great job of not trying to do what they aren't meant to do. There's a balance, confidence and swagger to them. They know who they are and why they're good. Those types of teams are really hard to beat. It will be fun to play them. Those are the games that we can go into and have nothing to lose. The pressure is all on them and those are fun games to play in as a competitor."
On thinking about postseason goals:
"[We'll start thinking about that] soon. I have learned after doing this long enough that when you start looking ahead, that's when you can trip, because you're not looking where you're walking. I'm really cautious of doing that, but it's getting to that point with three weeks left in the regular season, where our players know what's going on. I don't want to get too much into that, but soon we can start talking about what our goals are right now. This is where we're at and we've worked our butts off to get here so we can soon start thinking about what we want to achieve. We haven't done that yet, but soon."
On Joeseta Fatuesi:
"Similar to [Nawahine], it has been rewarding to see how much she has improved. At the beginning of the season, maybe she was a little more inconsistent, while learning a new style and how she can be effective. She's done a great job. Our assistant coach Gavin Petersen coaches the post players and has done a really good job of developing her and she's done really well. She's a glue player for us. She does a lot of things. She keeps the players loose. She has such a great personality. She's really important to our team even if she doesn't score a point. I'm proud of her. She's done a great job and we need her down the stretch."
On the impact of winning on recruiting:
"It's been helpful. Right now, we're selling the vision and where we want to go and how we're going to do it. In the absence of winning, you're basically asking kids to believe in you and have faith in what they haven't seen yet. The fact that we have had some success, we're at .500 right now in the Pac-12, gives us a little credibility. It has helped in terms of credibility that Utah Women's Basketball can be a factor in the Pac-12."
On the mental challenges of the second round of Pac-12 play:
"That's part of the fun of conference play. That is where you earn your stripes as coaches. This may sound a little weird, but it may be a little easier to make adjustments if you lose to a team the first time. If you beat them the first time, players have a tendency to become complacent. As coaches, we know that we have to make adjustments and some tweaks to things that didn't work and things that did work to find a weakness or something that you think you may be able to go after against your opponent. The key is getting your players to buy into that and understanding that we may have lost to someone, but here are the adjustments we're going to make to compete now or we beat these guys the first time, but it's only going to be harder. Like I said, it's hard to beat the same team twice in the same season. That's the fun of it, though. As a coach, that's the chess match. It's fun."
"We'll do a lot of film breakdown where we'll point out things that we did really well and that worked to show them and remind them. We'll also go over stuff that didn't work and remind them of that as well. Obviously, we'll give them tools to be more successful like doing this in a situation, instead of what we did last time. There's a lot of that and film to show the good and the bad."
On the support shown by the community:
"It's great. We only have two home games left, which is crazy to think about. Our next live event for the Coach's Show is next Monday night from 6:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. MT at the 50 West Comedy Club and Café (50 W. Broadway). The first one was a great success and really fun. It's a great opportunity for our fans. It's free and there are free food and drinks so there's no reason not to come. It's a great opportunity to hang out with our players. We talked about the quality of Danielle Rodriguez, but we have great student-athletes. That's one of the fun things about women's athletics. There's just a different kind of connection that you can have and get to know the team. The radio show is fun. We'd love to have twice as many people as we had last time, which was a great turnout. Attendance is improving and it's fun to see. We still aren't where we want to be long term by any stretch, but it's a slow boil. We have to take it one week at a time as a program. It's going to take several years to get where we want to go, but we're certainly headed in the right direction."
On wishes for each game:
"I have two answers. The first one would be a lower amount of turnovers. It's something we're working hard to fix and we have to continue to do that. And then offensive rebounds. I'd love to have 20 of those a game."
On amount of teaching and skill work at this point in the season:
"We still do a lot. We're not reinventing the wheel, but we still do a lot of skill development. As you go over the course of a season, you're always game-planning for your next opponent or recovering from your last game and talking about that so you can potentially forget about skill development so it's something that we do a lot. Tuesdays are all skill development days. We don't really talk about game planning, it's a lot of shooting, ball-handling, attacking and defensive stuff. We do a lot of that, actually."
Players Mentioned
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/ Women's Basketball
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